WEBVTT

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[music]

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My name is Lizzie Mamvura. I
became disabled at the age of two

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and through a lot of hard working,
I\'ve managed to go through school.

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This year Lizzie Mamvura along
with many other disabled people

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is writing an open letter to
the world describing her life.

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I work as a Co-Ordinator

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for the Disabled Women\'s Movement
in Zimbabwe. I visit Rose

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nearly every day. I bring a food.

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[non-English narration]

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Most of the world\'s 500
million disabled people

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are isolated and ignored.
Disabled women in particular

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are often hidden away and left to cope as
best they can. They are forgotten probably

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and are terrible waste of human potential.

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[non-English narration]

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I get angry when I see they\'re pulling

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circumstances of some disabled women here.
It makes me more determined

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to try to work for change.

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Meet disabled women of Zimbabwe who have been
forgotten for too long. We want you to know

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that we exist.

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[sil.]

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The stories of disabled people are being
collected in London by Rachel Hurst.

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She\'s in charge of Awareness in Action \'92, which
marks the end of the decade of disabled people.

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She intends to take the
letters to the United Nations

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so the details of the faceless
women would be on record.

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The world would no longer be
able to choose to forget.

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There are 500 million disabled people.
That\'s a figure that\'s so large

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that people can\'t start to grasp it. It
doesn\'t mean anything. We need to put

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flesh on those 500 million people and
especially the women as they experience

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a double discrimination. Hi. Hi. Morning.

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Has a fax come?

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The aim of Rachel Hurst\'s Awareness in Action \'92
project is to inform the world about disability issues.

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Letters are pouring in from
disabled people like Lizzie Mamvura

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who want the world to know about
their lives. One of the problems

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about becoming a disabled person or
being born a disabled person is that

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you\'ve all seen as the person who has to
change, you as the individual have seen

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as it were the fault or a sin or
whatever it is. And initially, one has

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this ghastly feeling that one ought to do something
about it. But you can\'t. Now once you understand that

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disability is not that, that
disability is something it has to,

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uh, that requires change within society
itself, then you as an individual

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can be liberated. Rather in the
same way as, uh, for many women,

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when they understand that they
have a right to equality,

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it\'s actually a liberating experience.

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[non-English narration]

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Rose needs (inaudible).
She\'s a mother of seven.

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She\'s disabled and his husband
has run away from her.

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I have spent… I was going to see a doctor

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and going to the welfare authorities.

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Together we\'ve filled out (inaudible)
forms and I\'m still waiting for results.

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Okay. The tragedy is that

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Rose is just one of many
disabled women here in Zimbabwe

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who have similar problems.

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[sil.]

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[sil.]

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I\'ve been involved in the disability
movement in the UK for some time.

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When I first became involved internationally,
I realized that women everywhere

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were not having let\'s say what they
should have, and that made me very angry.

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And it made me feel I have to be very careful to
support my disabled sisters, like Lizzie Mamvura

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who\'s already written to me about
the work she\'s doing here.

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I think I\'m especially supporting

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the disabled women because of the
double disadvantage being a woman

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and having a disability, which I have
experienced myself. I feel we have to learn

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some basic disadvantages and the
oppressions. We come together

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and support each other, and understand how
to combat them. I\'m actually very grateful

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for the lessons I\'ve learned
from these two experiences.

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I\'m very lucky because my daughter Kate

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works with me on the project and was
able to come with me when I travel

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and also to give me the
personal support I need.

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This Bulawayo community
really looks down upon

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disabled women, because they
don\'t think we are women enough

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to be married.

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Because of this, we cannot get
employment and the major problem is

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these women, in spite of them not
being in a position to get married,

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they often have kids and
the men responsible,

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they disappear into thin
air and to bring up kids

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when you have no resources and as a
single parent is very, very difficult.

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[sil.]

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Lizzie and I went to a
disabled women\'s co-op,

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one of the many she\'s helped to set up.
They all are almost full income

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making bobbins for garment factory.
And then they go to the factory,

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and then they put the cotton on. There\'s no doubt that the
disabled women are much more disadvantaged than disabled men.

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It takes different forms in
different cultures obviously.

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It\'s extraordinary to share disadvantages that
we have. There is the economic disadvantage.

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Disabled women are very much less
likely to get jobs than disabled men.

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Yeah. (inaudible) disabled men have a bad enough time.
Disabled people are the poorest of the poor in all countries.

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(inaudible). And on top
of that nearly everywhere

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disabled women lose their sexuality and
are not considered worth marrying.

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I think it\'s the same thing in England. Disabled women are
not seen as able to do what women are supposed to do,

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and therefore we don\'t get married either.
It\'s very difficult.

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We train (inaudible) women

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to be masters of their own destiny,
to fight for their own rights,

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because it looks like most of the disabled
women never had a chance of going to school.

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And as a result, they\'re really very
poor and they\'re not considered as,

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you know, any human beings at all.

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The major problem is

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we tend to feel sorry for ourselves.
As a result,

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we lack confidence.

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But what I\'ve observed is, as women, we
really need to be supportive of each other.

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If only we can manage to do
that, we\'ll do very well.

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[sil.]

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Disabled women in the rural areas,

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they have special problems. All
the facilities are out of reach.

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Hospitals, schools, even transportation

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is really difficult. Where they get water

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is really very far. One has to walk
maybe about five to ten kilometers

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and for a disabled someone,
it becomes very difficult.

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They also have problems because they cannot
work in the fields like other women.

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[sil.]

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Sometimes I\'m struck by the contradictions.
My sophisticated wheelchair feels on show.

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I think it would be much inward. The truth
is that it\'s not much use out here.

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I… I understand you found it
difficult with a wheelchair on here.

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[non-English narration]

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As Smomo Jilli told us,

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she thinks nothing traveling long distances
like this to get to the weekly meetings

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of the rural disabled women\'s group.
There\'s no public transport.

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Yet the women consider their meetings so important
that they make their way as best they can

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and for however long it
takes just to get together.

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Lizzie has started

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36 groups like this all over the country.
She knows it\'s the one way to stop

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the extreme isolation of disabled
women in the rural areas.

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Through sharing their experiences,
they can start search for solutions

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in the same way as other disabled
people\'s groups all over the world.

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(inaudible) members of the women\'s group
(inaudible) branch. My husband\'s relatives,

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they didn\'t like me because I\'m disabled.
I couldn\'t carry water in my head,

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because I am a disabled woman. So, you
know, you find that they don\'t help you.

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They don\'t like you. You
know, husband can go out

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during the night looking for, you know,
proper women who are not disabled.

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So we have that, you know, that exchange, that
really we are not happy with our families

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and our neighborhood. So although
my husband did loved me,

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but my husband\'s parents didn\'t want me.

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So it\'s very difficult to bring up
children if you\'re a disabled women,

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you know, unwanted, unliked, you
know, loneliness, you know…

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Yes. It\'s really killing us. Yeah. Yeah.

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[non-English narration]

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Hey.

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Hello.

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Hello. Traditionally in Africa,

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it\'s believed that children are born
disabled because the mother or her ancestors

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had been practicing witchcraft.
Disabled girls like these

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seem as bad omens and are often abandoned.

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I think people are
frightened by disability.

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There is a centuries-old subconscious message
that comes from religion and folk tales.

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It says the disabled person is being punished either
because they\'ve sinned or the family members sinned

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or even their ancestors have sinned in a
past life. The disabled child is seen

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as the embodiment of that sin.

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[sil.]

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If kids don\'t get stimulated, they
become more and more passive,

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uh… particularly the ones
with, umm… (inaudible)

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that are in contracture
and then they become

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more and more stiff. Institutions always
create or they make any disability

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there is increased because there\'s no
integration. There\'s no normality.

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There\'s no, um, choices.
Children have no control

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over their lives at all. They don\'t choose
what time to get up. They don\'t choose

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what to wear or how to behave. They\'re not
being asked in any way at all to conform

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to ordinary everyday life.
And it\'s… it\'s not like

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the people should say that they\'re not capable
of it and it\'s quite clear that if given time

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and the correct help,
they are capable of it.

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They have capacity to enjoy.

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They have a capacity to do something.
All of them. It\'s only a little bit

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they\'ve got some, and that
capacity should be used.

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[sil.]

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Such a waste. Terrible waste
of human beings. Isn\'t it?

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[sil.]

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Hello. Is that Department
of Social Welfare?

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Could I please talk to the social…

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the head of the department? Umm…
Phoning in connection with a lady

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called Rose Dube. She\'s a mother
of seven, and she\'s having

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serious problems. She\'s disabled and
the husband has run away from her.

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I was wondering if you could put her on your
list, but she needs immediate attention.

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[sil.]

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I feel very much upset during
the first few visits to Rose.

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I used to cry because I didn\'t know what
to do though I could not cry before her.

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But when I get home, I
really used to cry, because,

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uh… I was frustrated. I couldn\'t think
of anything in the way to get the things

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even if I phone and approach the people
who are supposed to be helping me

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though they know that there is laws.
There was very little help coming

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and that really upset me.

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[sil.]

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He divorced me because I am disabled.

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He said I am useless.

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So how can he stay with a
useless person you see?

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Didn\'t he try to help you?

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No. Not at all.

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Very cruel. He was used to hit me,

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pulling that leg. It was painful.

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Why would he do that?

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He was saying you better go too further

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because I can\'t stay with a disabled woman.
You better go.

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My kids, thinking of my kids,

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where to go with them?

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It\'s very difficult.

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My kids are am looking at me.

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I haven\'t got a plan.

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Where to go?

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What are we going to eat?

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I am not working. I am disabled.

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No one is going to employ me.

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[sil.]

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Three quarters of women with disabilities

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are in that situation of having
kids, looking after their children

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as single parents, not really being in a
position to do anything. And as a result,

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these children are disabled one way or the other
because they cannot receive the education

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in the same way as the mother.
They cannot get enough food

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just like what has been happening
to the mother. So a lot of things

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surrounds the children of women with
disabilities who are single parents.

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[sil.]

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All these human I met like Rose,

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they\'ve given me strength. They\'ve
given courage. As a result,

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I have been in a position to sort of,
umm… be in a position to cope with

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my own life regardless of
the problems that I have.

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So each time I would go out really feeling so
low in bed and then I\'ll meet these women,

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and I thought no, why should I waste
time crying and what have you?

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The only thing that I should do is, you know, to make
sure that my kids get everything that they want.

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And I thought maybe if I
work with disabled women

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and myself being disabled,
it could be an incentive.

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And I still feel maybe with a little that I\'m
doing, I could encourage women, other women

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to sort of, you know,
fight their way through.

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[music]

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One of the things that
we\'re doing is collecting

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from individual disabled people
letters or pictures or poems,

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anything they want to write
about, about themselves.

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And I want to collect hundreds and
thousands and millions of letters.

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And I want to take them to governments and I want
to take them to the United Nations to show that

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we really do exist.

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In developing countries like this
where the movement is strong

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and where women with a vision of Lizzie have
helped develop income generation projects

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and where the women have also become aware of
their problems and are starting to solve them,

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they are in some ways more advanced
than we are in the developed world.

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[sil.]

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Thank you very much. What is happening with the
women here in Zimbabwe is quite exceptional.

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I\'ve not come across certainly in
developing country anything like

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such a strong movement. It\'s much
stronger than it is in Britain.

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It\'s not a battle we\'re going to win today;

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maybe not even tomorrow. But we
will as long as women keep up

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the fight and keep going. Doesn\'t matter.
It\'s very good (inaudible). Very good.